Transcript The Rise of German Nationalism From 1815 to 1848 View of the Zeughaus (Prussian Castle) 1828

The Rise of German Nationalism
From 1815 to 1848
View of the Zeughaus (Prussian Castle) 1828
Europe in 1815
“Germany” in the

th
18
Century
During the 18th c. what we now think of as
Germany was ruled by a bewildering
conglomeration of some 700 separate political
entities, united in name, but not in reality, within
the Holy Roman Empire. The Germans were
generally regarded as a “land of poets and
thinkers.” The small courts and free cities
supported musicians like Bach and writers like
Goethe, Schiller, and Lessing. (Pace)
Napoleon’s Conquests
 The
occupation of the German provinces by
Napoleon's armies, ironically, helped bring a new
national unity to the German speaking peoples.
Napoleon spread the French form of liberalism,
which liberated the lower classes from aristocratic
rule and instituted centralized forms of
government .
 During the decades after Napoleon’s defeat, the
spread of commerce also gave the middle classes
a strong economic motivation for supporting the
creation of a unified German state. (Pace)
Early Nationalism in Prussia
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Gneisenau
Two Prussian noblemen, Stein and
Gneisenau, admired the ideals of
Napoleonic France: nationalism,
authoritarianism and liberalism.
They hoped to return the Prussian
military to the glory which it had
once held under Frederick the Great.
Like the Decembrists in Russia, they
attempted to liberalize Prussia:
– make careers open to talent.
– systematize the judiciary.
– modernize the armed forces.
Early Nationalism in Prussia
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
Gorres, a journalist and
pamphleteer, the author of
Rheinische Merkur, a "bastion of
German liberty."
He identified muscle and sweat
and power as key aspects of the
German character. Görres started
the Romantic cult of the Rhine
as the symbol of the German
spirit.
Military Reform

Scharnhorst , a Prussian
General, carried out the
military organization that
Stein had envisioned.
 The Krimper System
created a large reserve of
150,000 men which far
exceeded the 42,000 man
limit for the army set by
Napoleon.
The Congress Of Vienna

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In the aftermath of Napoleon’s
defeat, the leaders of Austria,
England, Russia and Prussia
wanted to prevent any repeat of
the Napoleonic conquest.
They agreed to meet at the
Congress of Vienna in 1815 to
discuss the situation.
Klemens Von Metternich


Metternich was the Austrian
Prince who dominated
central Europe between
1815 and 1848, just as the
Prussian Prince Otto von
Bismarck dominated it
during the second half of the
19th c.
His conservative philosophy
and “Balance of Power”
diplomacy helped preserve
peace in Europe for nearly a
century.
Metternich: The Carlsbad Decrees
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Metternich believed that nationalism and liberalism had to
be repressed everywhere to preserve European stability.
Traditional institutions like the aristocracy, monarchy and
church should preserve power over representative
institutions.
Metternich held that men were equal only before God and
the law. Socially, economically, and politically, there
could be no equality.
In ‘The Carlsbad Decrees’ Metternich clamped tight
control over liberal propaganda in Germany, particularly
over students in the schools.
Metternich denounced popular sovereignty, the idea that
people would have the right to vote to determine their
form of government.
Instead, he favored of the principle of monarchy. He
argued that democracy would lead ultimately to attack on
all forms of property.
Metternich’s German
Confederation

A new constitution for Germany:
– 39 states and 4 cities; each with an
independent assembly.
– Feudal rights of nobility were maintained.
– The Diet (Parliament of the Confederation).
 Austria controlled a large percentage of the
votes.
 Austrian president could cast a deciding
vote in case of a tie.
German Confederation 1815
Romanticism and German Nationalism
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German Idealism provides one way of understanding
why liberalism did not take root in Germany until after
WWII.
In Hegel’s conception of world history, each period has a
distinctive spirit (a zeitgeist) which distinguishes it from
previous ages. Each period possesses an organic unity
which coherently expresses itself in the art, philosophy,
religion, politics and leading events of the time.
The goal of the German Idealists was to assert and
protect their national identity. Hegel proposed a different
definition of the term freedom: German freedom is the
realization of a national identity, not the protection of
an individual’s natural rights.
Human beings discover their essential character, their
moral and spiritual potential, only as citizens of a
cohesive political community.
Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (c.1818)
Romanticism and German Nationalism
•
German artists, musicians and philosophers
reacted against the excessive rationalism of the
Enlightenment’s French philosphes.
• Sehnsucht - yearning for the lost, the unattainable,
the irrevocable, for dreams.
• They emphasized individuality and uniqueness.
• Within Romanticism existed the idea that a
nation state could be united by the imagination.
J.G. Herder (1744-1803)
Pluralism
• “The world is a great garden in which different
flowers and plants grow, each in its own way, each
with its own claims and rights, past and future.”
• “Center of Gravity”: The truth is regional.
Mankind is not one, but many:
•“Every culture possesses its own "center of
gravity”; each culture has its own points of
reference; there is no reason why these cultures
should fight each other-universal toleration must
be possible-but unification was destructive.
Nothing was worse than imperialism” (I. Berlin)
J.G. Herder: National Kultur
Why Kultur and an emphasis on the community is so good?
“Herder believed that the desire to belong to a culture, a set of
beliefs and traditions that unite a group, province or nation, was a
basic human need, as deep as the desire for food or drink or
liberty; and that this need to belong to a community where you
can understand what others say, where you can move freely,
where you have emotional as well as economic, social, and
political bonds, was the basis of developed, mature human life” (I.
Berlin)
Caspar David Friedrich, Eldena Ruin (1825)
Johann Fichte
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Fichte
Johann Fichte called for
spiritual regeneration of
the German ‘volk.’
He developed a concept of
nationhood which thought
of the nation as a living,
expanding community--in
other words an organism.
(See Address to the
German Nation)
Fichte: The Heart of German Nationalism
• Fichte celebrated the historical significance of the struggle
of the ancient German tribes against the Roman Empire that
had been recorded by the Roman historian Tacitus’ in
Germania .
• “Freedom was their possession, that they might remain
Germans, that they might continue to settle their own affairs
independently and originally and in their own way, and at the
same time to advance their culture and to plant the same
independence in the hearts of their posterity. Slavery was
what they called all the benefits which the Romans offered
them, because through them they would become other than
Germans, they would have to become semi-Romans.” (See
Address to the German Nation (1806-07))
Hegel: The Volk and the German State

From Kant: the German mind can create its own reality.
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The Volk: The state is a macroanthropos–.
– one individual bound together organically by blood,
language, tradition and history.
– The state accords with the feelings and thoughts of the
individual.
– The state is a work of art, not a theory.

Hegel did not believe that freedom is a matter of securing
abstract natural rights for the individual, as was the goal of
the French Revolution. Rather, true freedom can be attained
only within the social group. Human beings discover their
essential character, their moral and spiritual potential, only
as citizens of a cohesive political community.
•Caspar David Friedrich, The Cross on the Mountain
Hegel: German Kultur
• Absolute truth is expressed through the identity of each
period in history. The identities change, but the absolute
truth behind these cultures is the same.
•“Each period in world history has a distinctive spirit
or character that separates it from every preceding
age. Each period possesses an organic unity which
coherently expresses itself in the art, philosophy,
religion, politics and leading events of the time.”
• The Germans, through their struggles and wars, were
drawing closer to the realization of their true nature.
Fichte: “Our Nation”
• Fichte stresses that each citizen belongs to an entity
larger and more powerful than any individual.
• It is the duty of each citizen not to give into the powers
that be, to remain German and, when necessary, to fight
for the preservation of the German identity.
•“That a true German could wish to live only to be and to
remain a German.” (See Address to the German Nation
(1806-07))
Industrial Revolution in Germany

In the new city of Berlin,
economic crisis and
widespread unemployment
increased the revolutionary
activity of workers. There had
been an incipient worker
movement in Germany since
at least 1844.
 Tables Illustrating the Spread
of Industrialization.
Revolutions of 1848
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In the late 1840’s tension between the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat grew as the middle class gained increasing
wealth and power.
Then, in 1848, a series of democratic revolutions broke out
throughout Europe.
Demands of the Liberal
Revolutionaries
The Unification of Germany under a Liberal Government:
1. freely elected parliaments.
2. universal suffrage.
3. freedom of the press, religion, conscience and religion.
4. abolition of all privileges.
5. trial by jury.
6. reduction of the voting age to twenty-four.
7. universal education paid for by the state.
8. free public libraries.
Demands of the Workers
1. a progressive income tax
2. the right to collective bargaining
3. the right to work
4. minimum wages and maximum hours of
labor
The Frankfurt National Assembly (1848-49)
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The Frankfurt National Assembly adopted
a constitution for Germany on March 28,
1849. This document provided for.
– universal suffrage, parliamentary
government, and a hereditary emperor.
– a unified monetary and customs
system (the Zollverein) would draw
the constituent German states together.
The central government collapsed because
it could not raise taxes or equip an army.
The monarchs of Austria and Prussia
ignored the assembly.
The Conservative Reaction
• Terrified of socialism, the ruling classes violently put
down the revolutions, reneging on many of the promises
that they had made to the liberals.
• In Prussia, although the structure of liberal government
remained, no universal suffrage, no liberty of the press,
and no freedom of assembly were permitted.
• Austria re-asserted an absolute government and its
dominance among the German states.
• Autocratic governments, in alliance with the middle
classes and the clergy, strengthened the police forces and
repressed free speech in the the popular press and
outlawed liberal and socialist political parties.
Works Cited

The Congress of Vienna (1815)
 Prince Metternich and the New Social
Order: 1815-1848
 Reform, Liberation and Romanticism in
Prussia
 "Revolution and Reaction: 1848"